A Walmart store. The company’s use of generative AI “could be a template for the future of retail,” one expert told Retail Dive.Kaarin Vembar/Retail Dive

沃尔玛商店。一位专家告诉 Retail Dive，该公司对生成性人工智能的使用“可能成为零售业未来的一个模板”。Kaarin Vembar/零售跳水

AI has changed what Walmart can do with search.

About a month afterdebuting the technology, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said the company was already seeing results. McMillon said during a February earnings call that “help me buy a Valentine’s Day gift” was one of the most popular searches that month. “And rather than searching separately for things like chocolates, a car, jewelry, flowers, the search returns a list of results that are relevant and curated,” McMillon said.

这项技术推出大约一个月后，沃尔玛的首席执行官道格 · 麦克米伦(DougMcMillon)在今年2月份的财报电话会议上表示，公司已经看到了这种改变所带来的成效。“帮我买一份情人节礼物”是当月最多的搜索请求之一。新的搜索方式，不像以往搜索巧克力、汽车、珠宝、鲜花之类的单一商品，而是按搜索的场景要求，系统会给出一系列相关的、策划好的推荐商品。

The retailer begandeploying generative artificial intelligence late last year to answer customers’ mission-based searches and empower frontline employees with information that enables them to serve customers better and in real time.

沃尔玛去年年底开始部署生成性人工智能，开发了以回应客户基于“购物目的”的搜索，同时沃尔玛也用AI赋能一线员工，使他们能够更好、实时地为客户服务。

Generative AI can make connections and serve results to customers with context and personalization,Jon Alferness, chief product officer for Walmart U.S., told Retail Dive in an interview. The technology can also help customers identify what they want to buy and discover new products. Alferness said the company’s data backs up why advancing the implementation of generative AI-powered search is important.

沃尔玛美国首席产品官 Jon Alferness 在采访中告诉记者，生成型人工智能可以通过上下文和个性化建立联系，并为客户提供结果。这项技术还可以帮助客户确定他们想要购买什么，并发现新产品。Alferness 表示，沃尔玛公司的数据，对推动生成式人工智能搜索的实施起到了重要的作用。

Customers regularly ask mission-based shopping questions, Alferness said. Before integrating AI into search, “the answers that we were giving our customers were OK but not great,” he said. That is changing.

Alferness 说，消费者经常会问一些基于“购物目的”的问题。在将人工智能整合到搜索功能中之前，给客户的答案还可以，但不是很好。目前通过人工智能的应用，这种状况正在发生日新月异的变化。

Alferness said Walmart has also deployed generative AI to empower its associates with more information that can help them better serve customers. The technology serves as a cheat sheet for customer interactions by bringing all the tools an employee might use under a single umbrella to offer contextualized answers to customers’ product questions.

Alferness 表示，沃尔玛还部署了生成性人工智能技术，为员工提供更多信息，帮助他们更好地为客户服务。这项技术将员工可能使用的所有工具组合在一起，为客户有关的商品问题提供上下文相关的解答，从而为与客户的互动提供了一张备忘单。

For example, Alferness said, a customer might come to a store and ask an associate for help searching the aisles for a specific toy tied to a TV show or a movie but they can’t remember anything – the show, the movie or the character’s name. But AI can help find what a customer wants.

例如，Alferness 说，一个顾客可能来到一家商店，请求一个店员帮忙在货架上寻找一个与电视节目或电影有关的特定玩具，但是顾客不记得电视节目的名字、电影名字或角色的名字。但是人工智能可以让店员帮助客户找到他们想要的东西。

Associates can also use AI to get an answer if a product isn’t on the shelf. Within moments, they can find out if the supplier is out of inventory, if the product is on its way to a store on a truck, or even the approximate time it’ll get moved from the truck to the backroom and then a shelf on the sales floor. Connecting all those dots requires the power of AI.

如果产品不在货架上，员工也可以使用人工智能来得到答案。在很短的时间内，他们就能知道供应商有没有库存，产品是否在卡车运往商店的路上，甚至能知道大概什么时候能从卡车运到门店的仓库，然后陈列到门店的货架上的大致时间。连接所有这些点需要人工智能的力量。整个过程都很自然、流畅、无摩擦，AI的魔力发挥得淋漓尽致了。

Walmart said its generative AI technology analyzes customer intent based on query, session and engagement. It thenuses that information to create a holistic product offering in categories to serve results that cover a customer’s needs without overlaps or gaps.

沃尔玛表示，其生成式人工智能技术基于顾客的查询、会话和参与度来分析客户意图。然后，它使用这些信息，从不同类别的商品中挑选商品，创建一个商品集合，以提供满足客户需求的结果，而不会出现重叠或空白。

“The technology goes beyond the typical word matching and can detect much more complex relationships and connections,”Tom Taulli, the author of “Generative AI: How ChatGPT and Other AI Tools Will Revolutionize Business,” told Retail Dive in an email. “This is mapped to natural language prompts. In other words, this is a much better search experience.” Walmart’s deployment of the technology could be a template for the future of retail, Taulli said.

汤姆 · 陶利(Tom Taulli)是《生成型人工智能: 聊天 GPT 和其他人工智能工具将如何彻底改变商业》(Generative AI: How ChatGPT and Other AI Tools Will Revolutionize Business)一书的作者，他在一封电子邮件中告诉记者 “这项技术超越了典型的单词匹配，可以检测到更复杂的关系和联系。”这被映射到自然语言提示。换句话说，这是一种更好的搜索体验。”沃尔玛对这项技术的应用，可能成为零售业未来的一个模板。

“Generative AI is a transformative technology,” Taulli said.“Millions of people have seen the power of ChatGPT – and this has raised the bar for AI applications,” Taulli said. “For companies to remain relevant, they will need to adopt these powerful technologies.” 

“生成性人工智能是一项变革性的技术,”陶利说。“数百万人已经看到了 ChatGPT 的威力——这提高了人工智能应用的门槛,”陶利说。“为了让企业保持相关性，它们将需要采用这些强大的技术。” 

Just 4% of retail leaders said AI isn’t an important consideration,according to a recent survey of 1,100 retail industry decision makers by Algolia and Coleman Parkes Research. Another recent survey by Adobe found that 58% of respondents said generative AI improved their online shopping experience. Half of those surveyed said they’d use the technology to help them buy clothes.

基于相关的研究机构最近对1100名零售企业决策者进行的一项调查显示，只有4% 的零售企业领导者表示，人工智能不是一个重要的考虑因素。而最近的另一项这对消费者的调查发现，58% 的受访者表示，生成性人工智能改善了他们的网上购物体验。一半的受访者表示，他们会利用这项技术来帮助自己购买衣服。

“在许多方面，人工智能基因已经是先进零售战略的重要组成部分,”生成性人工智能专家、作家伯纳德•马尔(Bernard Marr)在一封电子邮件中告诉记者。“它集成了各种数据点(从浏览习惯到购买历史记录，甚至是实时行为) ，以提供一个令人信赖的个性化的购物之旅。随着零售业的不断发展，采用这些技术不仅对保持竞争力有利，而且对满足消费者日益复杂的期望也是必要的。”，零售商和消费者都受益于生成性人工智能不断升级的应用实施。

专家表示，一个自然语言提示就可以指导生成型人工智能基于某些限制，创建一个个性化的计划，如成本控制等。

尽管如此生，成性人工智能在零售业的应用仍处于初级阶段，可能需要几年时间才能成为该行业整体战略的核心部分。进展缓慢的一个重要原因是: 部署基于公司专有数据集的生成式人工智能模型，仍然是一项复杂的任务。

During the February earnings call, McMillon said Walmart is “very excited about generative AI,” and sees “big opportunities” to improve experiences for customers and associates, boost productivity and reduce costs for the business.

在2月份的财报电话会议上，麦克米伦表示，沃尔玛“对生成性人工智能非常兴奋”，并认为存在“巨大的机遇”，可以改善客户和员工的体验，提高生产率，降低业务成本。 

Walmart is far from alone in pursuing AI initiatives. Best Buy announced last month that it’spartnering with Google Cloud to introduce a virtual assistant and AI-enhanced customer support. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in April that the company plans to deepen its investments in generative AI and views the technology as a foundational element of better customer experiences.

追求人工智能举措的远不止沃尔玛一家。百思买(Best Buy)上月宣布，将与谷歌云(Google Cloud)合作，推出一款虚拟助理和人工智能增强的客户支持服务。亚马逊首席执行官安迪 · 贾西(Andy Jassy)今年4月表示，公司计划深化对生成式人工智能的投资，并将该技术视为提高客户体验的基础元素。

Additionally, generative AI’s power to bridge the gap between online and in-store experiences is a key reason the technology “is becoming an essential component of omnichannel retail strategies,” Marr said. “It bridges the gap between online and in-store experiences, ensuring that customer interactions are seamless, personalized, and responsive across all channels.”

此外，生成性人工智能弥合在线和门店体验之间差距的能力，是这项技术正在成为全渠道零售战略的重要组成部分的一个关键原因，它弥合了在线体验和店内体验之间的差距，确保企业和客户的互动在所有渠道上都是无缝的、个性化的和响应性的。”

Marr said Walmart’s adoption of generative AI reflects its transformative role in retail.

沃尔玛采用生成性人工智能反映了其在零售业的变革性角色。 

“Generative AI is crucial for Walmart’s future as it enables the company to enhance the shopping experience through personalized recommendations, optimized inventory management, and improved customer service interactions,” Marr said.

生成式人工智能对沃尔玛的未来至关重要，因为它使公司能够通过个性化推荐、优化库存管理和改善客户服务互动来增强购物体验。”。

Automating and tailoring those aspects, Marr said, enables Walmart to increase efficiency and deepen customer engagement, and those issues are “vital in today’s highly competitive retail landscape.”

这些方面的自动化和定制使沃尔玛能够提高效率和深化客户参与，这些问题在当今竞争激烈的零售业格局中至关重要。